Burglary Totals Tops Thousands of Dollars At Rogersville Water Works

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Burglary Totals Tops Thousands of Dollars At Rogersville Water Works

Thousands of dollars worth of tools and equipment got stolen from Rogersville Water Works.

“They just went though and looked and picked what they wanted,” said Rogersville Water Works superintendent, Shannon Howell.

Howell discovered the break-in when he came to the shop for routine maintenance checks Saturday morning. Those checks got put on hold, when he noticed tools missing and equipment scattered across the floor.

“I came in and noticed some stuff out of place, noticed the door was opened to a couple of areas and into our safe area so did a little more investigating and found out a lot of stuff was missing,” said Howell.

The superintendent says the thieves cut the chain to open the fence, then pried through a metal door to get inside. Howell says the burglars looked for anything valuable.

“Evidently it wasn`t as hard to break in as we thought it would be,” said Howell.

According to the superintendent, the thieves left several items stacked by the door.

“Apparently they got spooked off or ran out of room to put things,” said Howell. “Thank goodness, some of it was expensive equipment.”

But Howell says before leaving the thieves managed to load up the department’s 300 pound safe full of deposits and even the deed.

“I would just like to have our stuff back, especially our personal stuff. The other stuff can easily be replaced,” said Howell. However the superintendent says replacing the personal information will take a lot of extra time and money for the department.

The water works superintendent says security measures will be taken to secure the department’s equipment, like installing security cameras and an alarm system.

If you have any information about this case, you can leave an anonymous tip on the Shoals Area Crimestoppers tipline at 256-386-8685.